Boxing Day Bestsellers, Forgotten Anniversaries, and England's World Cup Heartbreak

It was Christmas 2020 and something big was brewing.

We were deep in lockdown and limited to socialising with immediate family only.

But I was distracted.

Kept checking my phone and no one knew why.

And then at around 1:15pm on Boxing Day it finally happened.

All through Christmas, my second psychological thriller, His Wife's Sister, had been quietly climbing the Kindle charts.

And finally it hit the No.1 spot in the entire UK Kindle store.

I had to show my phone to Amanda to check, hardly able to believe it.

It was something I'd only ever dreamt of – and now I was officially a bestselling author.

It changed everything.

It was the moment I finally allowed myself to believe I could walk away from my day job as a journalist and become a full-time author.

But it wasn't just that I had a book topping the charts.

It was financially liberating.

Life-changing.

And taught me a valuable lesson about exposure.

One of the main reasons for its success was that it had been listed in Amazon's Prime Reading programme.

That meant tens of thousands of eyes on the cover.

And the more people who downloaded it, the higher it climbed in the charts, and so even more people saw it.

That's the power of exposure in a crowded Amazon marketplace.

You can write the best book in the world, but if no one knows it exists, it's destined to flop.

This week, His Wife's Sister has had something of a welcome renaissance.

The reason this time? I've made it free in the UK and US Amazon stores.

Another way of getting people to sit up and take notice.

The Thriller Couple

It was our anniversary this week.

Twenty-six years since we said, 'I do.'

And typical of us, we both forgot 🫢

Amanda remembered first when she saw the date.

And texted me from upstairs (because after 26 years that's how we communicate when we're under the same roof…)

We didn't go out to celebrate – not least because it was a rare appearance for England in a World Cup semi-final match.

It turns out we should have gone out instead.

One day. One high. One low. But meh, life goes on.

There will be more anniversaries. More World Cups.

No biggie.